Review of the Hello Neighbour online lettings platform

I stopped using high street letting agents to find tenants in 2021, after having received bad service from the local branch of a national firm. One of my tenants suggested I use OpenRent another time, which I did in 2022, 2023 and 2024. However, when I looked for tenants in June 2026, I decided to use Hello Neighbour’s ‘Get Rented’ service for the reasons I explain below.

This blog post is a practical step by step guide and review of Hello Neighbour’s Get Rented service, based on my personal experiences as a landlord using the service in June 2026 to find new tenants. This included advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla and On The Market, and using their platform to enter into a new Assured Periodic Tenancy with tenants after a compliance check, and handling the holding deposit and tenancy deposit. I also used Get References to obtain references.

The very short version is that I really love Hello Neighbour’s Get Rented service, and I am happy to recommend it to other landlords. I would use it again in preference to OpenRent’s RentNow. Read on to find out why.

PS The links to Hello Neighbour are not affiliate links, and I paid the full price for Get Rented and Get References. I do not benefit financially if you use Hello Neighbour, but as I explain below, I became an independent non-executive director of the company in May 2025.

My history with Hello Neighbour (and OpenRent)

I first came across Hello Neighbour in January 2024 when the CEO, Richard Jenkins, contacted me through my website after reading my blog post How to terminate a property management contract with letting agents (which I have since updated). They had long been campaigning against renewal fees and on-going charges, which make it difficult for landlords to change letting agents.

Shortly afterwards, Hello Neighbour launched their beta “DIY letting” service. I had a look at it, and gave them a long list of changes that needed to be made before I would consider trialling it myself. For instance, they needed to have a dashboard and enable landlords to communicate directly with tenants on the platform. Those were red lines for me before I’d even consider switching.

The improvements hadn’t been implemented by the next time I needed to find new tenants in October 2024, so I used OpenRent RentNow.

However, OpenRent had changed their handling of deposits in mid-2024, making it compulsory for landlords to use their insured deposit scheme, instead of letting the deposit go into a custodial scheme in the landlord’s name. This happened at the same time as charging £50 extra to advertise on Rightmove, although that has since increased to an additional £70, bringing RentNow to £128 with Rightmove (£58 base price plus £70 for Rightmove, as checked on 15 July).

After battling with them to try to have a custodial deposit in October 2024, I announced in my newsletter of 8 November 2024 that I was withdrawing my recommendation for RentNow. (Btw, I chuckled when I read that newsletter, as so much has changed since then! If you liked it, you can sign up for my newsletter here).

Hello Neighbour contacted me in April 2025 asking me if I would join their board as an independent non-executive director and help them develop version 2 of their Get Listed (advertising only) and Get Rented (includes listing plus tenancy creation), to create a best in class DIY lettings platform for landlords.

I said yes, and joined in May 2025.

Ironically, OpenRent have since gone back to a custodial deposit scheme.

Following extensive improvements to the Hello Neighbour platform, when I needed to find tenants in June 2026, I decided to give Get Rented a go. This is my review.

What is Hello Neighbour?

Hello Neighbour is a privately-owned letting agency founded by brothers Richard and Mike Jenkins in 2018, which is headquartered in New Malden.

As well as offering full-service lettings and management services, with 900 properties currently under management, it launched a ‘self-service’ or ‘DIY’ lettings platform in 2024 to allow landlords to advertise on the portals directly, without using traditional letting agents.

In 2026, Hello Neighbour relaunched upgraded self-service packages, called Get Listed for property listings for £29, and Get Rented for property listings and tenancy creation for £59, both including advertising on Rightmove, Zoopla and On The Market.

What is the difference between ‘Get Listed’ and ‘Get Rented’?

Hello Neighbour’s Get Listed service is the equivalent of OpenRent’s “Ultimate Advertising” package, to enable landlords to list a property on the portals, arrange viewings, communicate with applicants and receive offers. Get Rented progresses the tenancy from the offer stage, to eventual signing of the tenancy agreement.

The features of Get Listed

Here is a summary of what Get Listed provides:

• Advertising on all three portals as standard for £29 inc VAT, ie Rightmove, Zoopla and On The Market
• 7 days as a Rightmove Featured Property – Premium Listing as standard. (OpenRent do not offer this – see their post here).
• Guided advert builder for advertising on the platforms.
• Pre-screened tenant enquiries. Applicants can contact the landlord through the platform, or call Hello Neighbour, who will take a message.
• Tenant Finder: At a glance dashboard showing enquiries received, source, whether viewing is booked, button to invite to book, and a click through to the messages to and from each applicant.
• Viewings dashboard: Landlords can show when they are available for viewings, and applicants can apply to book slots to view the property.
• Applicants can submit an offer through the platform.

Get Rented

Get Rented is the equivalent of OpenRent’s “RentNow” package, and takes the landlord through the various compliance steps to a signed Assured Periodic Tenancy Agreement.

Get Rented costs an additional £30, which a landlord can pay once they receive an offer. This means the total for the Get Listed and Get Rented packages is £59, including advertising on Rightmove. If buying Get Rented from the start, the code TIL10 will give you a £10 discount. If you upgrade midway through, Hello Neighbour will honour the discount, but there is a manual process. See below for more info).

Here is what Get Rented includes in addition to Get Listed:

• Receipt of holding deposit.
• Compliance checks (see image above).
• HMO and selective licensing checks.
• Assured Periodic Tenancy autogenerated and digitally signed.
• First month’s rent collected.
• Tenancy deposit received, and registered as a custodial deposit with MyDeposits.
• Option to purchase references, rent guarantee insurance and inventories.

Step by step process for using Hello Neighbour to find tenants

Here is the step by step process for finding tenants on the Hello Neighbour platform:

1. Choose between Get Listed or Get Rented. It’s easy to start with Get Listed, as you can upgrade to Get Rented at a later stage.
2. Create the listing on Hello Neighbour, including setting the rent, uploading photos, floorplan and a description. There is an option to buy photography and a floorplan.
3. The platform asks the key questions needed for the listing, eg flat or house, detached, semi, terraced (and other options like mews or country cottage!), address, asking rent, deposit amount, furnished/unfurnished/partly furnished. There’s also a useful list of key features to tick, with everything from garden home office space to utility room and off-street parking. It makes the listing super-quick to do.
4. Decide if you want to add specific dates/times for viewings so that tenants can request specific viewing time slots, or just set your general availability (eg Mon-Sat 2pm to 7pm). As my availability regularly changes, I only put up a few days at a time.
5. Set the terms of the offer. Check the default settings for the terms of the offer and customise it for the tenancy agreement, for instance, the level of the deposit.
6. Pay the £29 and publish the advert.
7. If it is your first property with Hello Neighbour, you’ll need to complete the Trust ID verification. Hello Neighbour will arrange for the landlord to be sent a link to the Trust ID platform, so they can upload proof of ID and complete a live face match check. The advert will only be published if the checks are passed.
8. Interact with your enquiries and respond to viewing requests. Tenants complete a profile with information on the household income, type of tenants (eg sharers or family), the names of the tenants, any permitted occupiers over 18, any guarantor, details of pets.
9. As I require additional information (eg links with the local area, why they are looking to move), I sent each applicant a list of pre-screening questions.
10. Carry out viewings arranged on the platform.
11. Review offers and respond. Landlords can invite an applicant to offer, and accept an offer.

This is where Get Listed ends.

At this point the landlord can either complete the tenancy themselves with all the compliance tips, or for an additional £30, they can upgrade to Get Rented, and complete the rest of the process on the Hello Neighbour platform. (See below about how to get a £10 discount if you upgrade to Get Rented mid-way through).

These are the next steps in Get Rented:

1. If the landlord wishes to progress to referencing, they can ask the applicant to pay a holding deposit of up to one week’s rent. If the applicant is successful, this holding deposit will be deducted from the first month’s rent, in compliance with the Renters’ Rights Act rules on rent in advance, and the Tenant Fees Act rules on holding deposits.
2. Purchase referencing if you want to reference check for £24 per applicant or guarantor (OpenRent is £30). They use Canopy for the referencing. I purchased references on the platform as it was easy.
3. Go through the compliance checks, uploading the gas safety certificate, EICR, EPC etc. There is a useful reminder to be registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office because they will be handling personal data. See What data protection rules do landlords need to comply with?
4. The agreement is sent for electronic signature via Signable.
5. Purchase inventory and check in if required. I went direct to the inventory clerks I use myself.
6. Hello Neighbour collects the first month’s rent and tenancy deposit, the deposit is registered with MyDeposits, who send the prescribed information out.
7. Add the detail about key handover and download the documents needed for the likeness check of right to rent if references were purchased.

>> Related Post: How to carry out viewings at your property safely

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How did I get on with Hello Neighbour’s Get Rented?

I am pleased to say I had excellent applicants, and have found some lovely tenants. The platform is easy to use. I’m a convert.

Here are the stats:

• I had enquiries from 12 sets of applicants. None of them were rent-to-renters. (When I last used OpenRent I was contacted by 3 rent-to-renters, initially pretending to be genuine tenants).
• 5 had clicked through from Rightmove, 4 from Zoopla, and 1 from On The Market. The rest had called Hello Neighbour, so I don’t know which platform they came from.
• I had 5 viewings booked, 1 cancellation the previous day, 4 viewings, and 3 offers. That was an efficient use of my time.
• 5 didn’t respond to my standard questions, so I did not progress their enquiry.
• I let the property within 7 days of the advertisement going live.

I found the platform bright and airy, easy and intuitive to use, and was pleased with the quality of candidates that came through.

It has been designed with compliance with the Renters’ Rights Act in mind, including the rent in advance rules and it’s not possible for the landlord to increase the rent once listed.

I like the dashboard, and how Hello Neighbour guide landlords through each stage. It would be easy for someone switching to self-letting for the first time to use the platform. There are videos explaining each stage, but I didn’t need them.

It was easy to message tenants on the platform, and I received alerts to my phone when I received a message.

Unlike OpenRent, with Hello Neighbour, applicants cannot send holding deposits unless the landlord invites them to, which is a big bone of contention with OpenRent when landlords receive holding deposits from people they don’t want to let to.

I’m pleased to say that Hello Neighbour have a custodial scheme for the tenancy deposit.

That said, I had a few minor niggles with Hello Neighbour:

• I didn’t like being pinned down to show availability for viewings, and would prefer to give tenants options when they contact me. Hello Neighbour tell me that this will shortly be changed.
• The online rental valuation and market rent report were not at all accurate for my area, probably due to lack of data. I ignored it.
• There isn’t the ability to send a “Tenant Auto-Reply” to applicants, which there is with OpenRent. I always send further screening questions, and I would have liked this to have been done automatically.
• The signed tenancy agreement isn’t held on the platform, but was sent to me via Signable. Hello Neighbour have told me this will soon be available for downloading on the platform.
• There was a slight hiccup with the registration of the tenancy deposit as I already had an account with MyDeposits, but that was sorted without any intervention on my part.

Why Hello Neighbour is a credible alternative to OpenRent

Here is the direct comparison between OpenRent and Hello Neighbour that shows why Hello Neighbour is an excellent alternative to OpenRent:

£10 Discount Code for Get Rented

I’ve spoken to Hello Neighbour, and they are happy to give readers of this blog post a £10 discount if they buy Get Rented from the start as a new customer.

The Get Rented £10 discount code is TIL10. It is not an affiliate code, which means I don’t get a kickback on it. I’m sharing it on the website because I rate Get Rented, and would like to encourage other landlords to give it a go.

If you’ve a new customer who has already bought Get Listed and you want to upgrade to Get Rented, Hello Neighbour will honour the £10 discount if you email them on contact@hello-neighbour.com. Just give them the code, and they’ll process it for you manually. (It’s a manual process as the cost to upgrade to Get Rented is paid for by a deduction from the first month’s rent, and not via Shopify).

Final thoughts – Is Hello Neighbour any good?

Yes. I was very pleased with the Hello Neighbour platform (Get Listed and Get Rented), and would use it again in preference to OpenRent based on my experience as a customer.

The platform feels more modern and fresh than OpenRent. My perception is that I had more suitable applicants than when I last let the property using OpenRent. Maybe it’s a better market, or as a result of being a Featured Property on Rightmove? Or perhaps it’s because Hello Neighbour stands out more?

Hello Neighbour’s Get Rented is a credible alternative to OpenRent’s Rent Now product, at a lower price point but with more features.

It was straightforward to use, and I got some great tenants. Job done, and a £69 saving over OpenRent’s RentNow.

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